Video taken by a witness during an arrest shows a Denver police officer punching a suspect in the face six times and then tripping the man’s girlfriend who is seven-and-a-half months pregnant, causing her to land on her belly and face.
The witness who took the video claims an officer then took the tablet he was using to record the arrest, deleted the video file, not realizing it had already been stored on the electronic cloud.
The limited-use video obtained by FOX31 in Denver shows the suspect’s head bouncing off the pavement from the force of the punches.
According to police reports, the uniformed police officer, Charles “Chris” Jones IV made the arrest after undercover narcotics police officers say they saw the suspect, David Flores, a suspected drug user, stuff a white sock in his mouth that they suspected was full of heroin.
Police say Flores refused to respond to requests to show his hands.
While Jones and his partner Christopher Evans were holding and punching Flores, a woman can be heard screaming. A few seconds later, Mayra Lazos-Guerrero, 25, falls hard on her face when Jones sweeps her feet out from under her. Jones said he did it because he thought she was going to kick him.
In a supplemental article, Fox31 Denver reported on Tuesday that the “previously closed ‘use of force’ investigation… will get a second look” following Fox31 Denver’s exclusive investigation, adding:
The videotape shows two undercover narcotics agents and two uniformed officers trying to retrieve a sock out of the mouth of a Honduran immigrant named David Flores.
Police reports say the group stopped Flores after seeing him buy what they believed to be heroin.
Officer Charles “Chris” Jones the Fourth can be heard yelling at Flores to “spit the drugs out!” Jones then punches Flores in the face six times, causing visible injuries to his face and head.
Flores’ 7 1/2-months pregnant girlfriend, Myara Lazos-Guerrero, came be heard on videotape screaming at officers in Spanish for them to stop hurting him. When she approached the scrum, Jones did a “leg sweep” on her. Guerrero fell hard on her protruding stomach and face.
You can watch a news clip, below, from Fox 31:
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